SIX AH WI
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Biography

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Ras Stone’s signature paintings of elongated, sinewy female figures, award winning carnival costume designs, playful children’s book illustrations and sculptures, distinguish him as one of Canada’s most innovative multi-medium artists.

Known for creating art that evokes movement, whether on the body of a Caribana carnival King or Queen, on canvas, paper or free standing in the form of meticulously twisted and bent wire structures, Stone has contributed significantly to the Canadian Caribbean art landscape.

A self taught artist, his 2006 Skin to Steel exhibit at York University’s Fine Arts Gallery in Toronto was the first of its kind, using art to tell the story of the birth of the drum and the evolution of the steel pan; an instrument indigenous to Trinidad, the country where Stone was born.

Stone’s carnival costumes composed of wire, paper-maché, colourful fabrics, beading, and more have toured Canada and the United States. In 1991, the Royal Ontario Museum’s Caribbean Celebrations exhibit featured Quetzalcoatl the Mayan God, one of his most famous creations. In 1993, Harbourfront’s Festival of Lights put on display his piece Sun Worshiper. That year, impressed with his artisanship, the McMichael Canadian Art Gallery in Kleinberg contracted Stone to lecture and conduct a workshop on creative costume design titled, Mas Hysteria.

His artwork can be found in a number of children’s books including Art of Enlightenment, The History of Art in Toronto Schools, published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside and the Learnxs Foundation, in collaboration with the Toronto Board of Education, for the City of Toronto, Collections-Building Community, published by Prentice Hall Ginn, Canada, and Play Mas! A Carnival A, B, C, published in 2000 by Tundra books, featuring 26 of Stone’s illustrations.

Born in San Fernando near Trinidad’s south coast, Stone migrated to Canada in 1974. Since then, he has participated in numerous group and one man shows. Institutions and individuals including the Toronto Board of Education, Extreme Fitness Inc., multi-millionaire owner, operator; Steve DaCosta and the Trinidad and Tobago Consulate own his paintings.

A member of the Six Ah Wi Art Collective, Stone has used his unlimited prints and artist proofs to raise funds for sickle cell anaemia, Artists United Against Aids and Goals for Youth. In 1996, he received The Pursuit of Excellence Award from the Toronto Police Commission and in 1999, the Trinidad and Tobago Republic Day Award for appreciation of his outstanding contribution within the community, from the Trinidad and Tobago Consul General.

Stone’s most recent work presents multi-medium artistic renderings of 20th century icons including Emperor Haile Selassie, Marcus Garvey, Harriet Tubman, Bob Marley and Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.

View Ras Stone's Image Gallery